The Priory of Cartmel [first edition]

When King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries during the Reformation many of the buildings were pulled down and the stone used elsewhere. The villagers of Cartmel, in Cumbria (then part of Lancashire-beyond-the-Sands), were able to save their priory church on the grounds that they had nowhere else to attend services. As a result Cartmel has on of the grandest parish churches in Britain: a magnificent building dominating this charming old-world village, and visited by thousands of tourists each year.